


Putting the Pieces Back Together

by altessah



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:28:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1368916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altessah/pseuds/altessah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison's dead.<br/>Time has passed -- or she assumes time has passed -- and she's come to terms with it. But just when Allison's beginning to accept that she's gone, and just when she's beginning to feel at peace, she wakes up sputtering in a tub of ice water, her friend on one side of her and her love on the other.<br/>And something's just not right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Putting the Pieces Back Together

           The only way to describe death, was an absence of time. I couldn’t tell if I was thinking, or if the sounds I heard were echoes of the moments before I left. I had no vantage point to use to steady myself, or convince myself that I was sane. For all I knew, I was experiencing nothing, and these thoughts are not memories but assumptions.

Death was blurry.

But the pain was sharp.

It came all of the sudden and slammed me in the gut with so much force, my lungs seemed to contract. My heartbeat dropped in my stomach, and I could feel the pounding of every blood vessel like a new stab in my center. The burning of tears in my eyes only made me more aware of the frigid leather that was my skin.

My eyes shot open, burning like the sandpaper breath in my throat. The sudden realization that I was _feeling,_ was enough to bring a shudder through me that felt like an electric shock. The ice water around me only amplified the jolt, which sent me lurching forward, suddenly feeling like I was dying all over again.

When my stinging eyes finally adjusted to the brightness of the room, I saw that I hadn’t imagined the ice. I was sitting in a long metal tub, a simple black dress clinging to the goose bumps that scurried up my arms and legs. I heard water rushing beside me and other people were gasping for breath. I recognized them.

“ _Allison_!”

I wasn’t sure if the weirdness of the sound came from prolonged disuse of my ears, or my name.

“ _Is she alive_?”

I blinked several times and a familiar figure came into view in front of me. Stiles’ face flushed with relief and he began to laugh, his bright eyes even wider than usual. He cursed a few times, but I didn’t understand why. The bright lights still hurt, and the confusion brought even more tears to my eyes. Someone appeared by my shoulder, and I turned. Before I could catch sight of his brown eyes, he had me in a tight hug.

“Scott, what happened?” I croaked. My voice was so gruff it brought shivers to my spine.

“You died,” he said simply. His voice was thin.

The thought occurred to me that maybe this was heaven. Maybe Stiles and Scott were only illusions, and this was all in my head. But then I felt another stabbing pain in my gut, and Scott clutched my arm, and the combination of the warmth and the pain was so incredibly _human_ that I knew. I knew that I was somehow alive.

“Why am I back?” I asked in a whimper.

“You’re back because it’s only fair,” he stated, and he said it with so much certainty I almost believed him. “You were too young, Allison. Your life was cut short, and it was a mistake.” He brushed his thumb over a spot on my stomach, and a blade suddenly appeared, something red dripping over the handle. I blinked, and the image disappeared. I felt that empty all of a sudden, and my head fell against his shoulder, his neck absorbing the sobs.

“What did you tell him?” I struggled to get the words out.

“I told your dad that you loved him, and that you said it was okay. But I also told him that we would do anything we could to get you back.”

“ _No_.” I tried to hit him in the back, but my muscles were so weak, I doubt he felt anything. “No. You shouldn’t have done this, Scott. I don’t know how you brought me back, but it’s unnatural.” I shivered, and my lip trembled. “It _hurts_.”

The confusion and sadness that filled his expression was so out of place, for a moment I forgot he was part wolf. I could see his eyes trying to calculate why I was disappointed; why I was angry with him for taking an action he had assumed was brave.

He and Stiles worked to lift me from the tub of ice, but even after I emerged, I didn’t feel any warmer. We huddled together on the ground.

We were in a room that looked vaguely familiar, though my mind was having trouble placing it. It was a large, white space, the tubs one of the two distinguishing factors of the whole room. The other was a few yards away.

A shriveled, black stump that I soon realized to be emanating something cold, prickling, and stale.

“The Nemeton,” I realized through clenched teeth. I squinted at its thin roots and cracked surface. “Why does it look so... dead?”

Scott pulled me closer, running his palm across my upper arm. I felt nothing.

“We drained it,” he told me, finally. “We had to. It was the only way to get you back.”

I turned and stared at him. “You did _what?_ ”

“We don’t need it anymore, Allison,” Stiles cut in. “It’ll actually be kind of nice to have it gone. Who would’ve thought a stupid stump would be the root of all our problems?” He grinned, but I didn’t.

Instead, I took another look around, tightening my fists to keep my anger in check. How could they have been so reckless?

“So this isn’t real, then?” I supposed. “We’re all on the verge of death… Again. The others are holding our heads underwater right now. That’s why I’m so cold.”

Scott nodded slowly. “We should wake up any minute.”

I shook my head, the realization beginning to dawn on me that there was a variable missing in this equation. “Did it ever occur to you guys that maybe we _won’t_ wake up?” I demanded, my tone wavering. “Maybe you’ve drained just a little too much power from that stupid tree, and it won’t be strong enough to take us back?” I was beginning to sound hysterical. “Did it ever occur to you that we might be _stuck_ here _forever?_ ”

I looked from one boy to the other, assuming their silence was their way of saying they hadn’t. But then Stiles spoke up.

“You’re forgetting the riddle, Allison.”

“What riddle.”

Scott mused, “ _‘When is a door not a door?’_ ”

I rolled my eyes. “When it’s ajar. So what?”

“So, we’ve been here before,” Stiles continued. “That door has been ajar ever since the first time we unlocked it. It didn’t take as much energy to walk back through.”

“But that’s not all,” Scott admitted, and I could’ve sworn his expression was guilty.

I narrowed my eyes. “What are you not telling me?”

Scott drummed his fingers on the floor. “Allison, when you wake up, you’re not going to feel… normal.”

I groaned. “What? Am I going to have hallucinations about my dead aunt again?”

Stiles started, “Actually—”

Scott shot him a look.

“Nevermind.”

I glared at Scott. “What’s different this time, Scott? What did you two _do_?”

Scott swallowed. “We needed more energy,” he admitted. “The fact that the door had already been opened was a start, but we needed to be certain that both you and Stiles would make it back alive. So…”

“So what?”

“So we made you stronger.”

I blinked once. Twice. It wasn’t until the third time, that I felt the sensation on my upper arm: pressure and then pain. Something unnaturally sharp piercing my skin, and injecting a sort of poison that made my insides churn, and my gums ache. The lights above us began to flicker, and Scott and Stiles disappeared from my sides, until I was staring at a ceiling, ice water tearing at my skin again, pain clawing at my arm and stomach. My vision was turning red around the edges, and my tongue tasted blood, as I shot forward in the water – fingers clutching the edges of the tub, eyes appraising the familiar group of people staring down at me;

Sharp fangs, bloodied from where they had dug into the backs of my lips, were bared.

The agonized howl, which was heard across Beacon Hills that night, came from my throat.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> (If you're interested, I have a little preface bit on my tumblr (altessah.tumblr.com),which just describes Allison's thoughts as she's dying. I didn't want to post it here, as it's kind of redundant.)


End file.
